Seagate ST31000528AS slowed to a crawl after firmware update

[J@Y]

HEy all, i am having Seagate ST31000528AS which is ttached to my PC as a secondary drive with Windows 7 SP 1 installed on an Intel SSD drive. and recently i have tried with the upgrade the drive to CC49 and now my Hard Drive speed has slowed to a crawl, please find HD Tune results enclosed. can here anyone tell me back about the getting the HD Tune results enclosed.?? i am thinking here that now my hard drive is working very slow this is only because of the update for that reason now i am, thinking for downgrading the hard drive, can here anyone suggest me that how can i do that ??? if yes then please reply me back for that. and also tell me back that the Would downgrading the firmware be a good move and how can I do it???

[DaminiAMD]

OK if you are getting that type of the problem then for that i will suggest you to try with the checking the sata cable for secure connections, and then try with the booting the PC without the drive connected. this is because, when you will start it again at that time windows will find it when you hotplug it. here in your cause still i can say that the O/S is still looking for the drive under it's old firmware. try with this, i hope that this will get it back to the normal position. reply me back about this results of this all.

[J@Y]

YEs, i tried with that also but still this not make any difference in my case. when i try with openning the case at that time i get that hard drive constantly spinning and what sounds like data being read from the disk. i am having specs of my PC as:::

• Apologies for not posting specs of PC. These are
• Intel Q6600 2.4Ghz G0 CPU
• ASUS P5KC motherboard
• 4GB Memory
• Windows 7 64-bit dual booting with Linux Mint Debian 54-bit

[Mogambo]

OK, have you tried with changing the policy for the drive?? if no then try with that also. this is because , i was getting that my system have get slowed down too, and I had to enable Turn off Windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device. after trying with this, i get that speed is normal now. and now CC38 is way faster in access, hope that in your this will help you.

[J@Y]

Thanks for the suggestion RC-9013Apple but this made no difference to the speed. I think I mentioned I have Linux on this Hard Drive and whereas before it booted in seconds flat is now taking 5 minutes or more for it to boot which leads me to believe that the slowness is being caused by the update to the firmware.

[Bala Murugan S]

in your case, i am thinking that you have tried with the following updates:::

Barracuda 7200.12 Firmware Update [213891]:If so, then here are two earlier updates (bootable CD ISO):

the updater will most probably reject your drive. i am sure that your current problem could be related to the CC49 update. for making sure about this, you can also see any reallocated, pending, or uncorrectable sectors under HD Tune's Health tab. and also try with the reducing the SATA interface speed with the drive's 1.5Gbps jumper. try with this all and then reply me back about this all settings.

[Gaganvihari]

YEs, i also agree here that there will be some another problem with the drive and this problem have occusred at the time of the firmware update. in my cas, when i was trying for looking the HDTune at that time i get the following results for this:::

• Reallocated Sector count - Current = 49, Worst = 49, Threshold = 36
  
• Current pending Sector - Current = 100, Worst = 100, Threshold = 0
  
• offline Uncorrectable - Current = 100, Worst = 100, Threshold = 0
  
• UDMA CRC Error Count - Current = 200, Worst = 200, Threshold = 0

hope that this will help you in this case. try with this and reply me back here if you get the problem with this also.

[DaminiAMD]

OK if so, then here i am sure that your drive probably has around 2000 reallocated sectors. and also i am thinking here that there is no need for downgrading the firmware. after this also, if you are going to try with the donwlaodiong the firmware for this then which firmware downgrade would you like to try, if any then reply me back for this all.

[Bala Murugan S]

If you are getting the followiing error::

Raw Read Error rate - Current = 117, Worst = 99, Threshold = 6, Data (If needed) = 150278803

then at that time i will say you that Hard Drive is beginning to die, so better for you to try with the start backing stuff up and order a new Hard Drive.

[DaminiAMD]

before you are going to try with the writing this all, i will tell you to try with the low level format/zero fill, i am thinking that this might bring it back a bit. and also for the safely purpose i will tel you to take all the data onto a new drive though. and also i will tell you to try with the using HD Sentinal to get some figures for it is health before and after,

[J@Y]

YEs, this works now. thanks DaminiAMD for telling me about the :

try with the low level format/zero fill, i am thinking that this might bring it back a bit. and also for the safely purpose i will tel you to take all the data onto a new drive though. and also i will tell you to try with the using HD Sentinal to get some figures for it is health before and after,

i tried with that and now all things are working very fine for me. now i am really very happy with that./